No it isn't. He's 26 and wasting precious time because it only gets harder winning slams as he age. Nadal can't afford to wait any longer.

Please see the chart below.

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He is 26, not 36. Agassi won a bunch of slams from 29 years of age on. Nadal has some more slams in him, I am pretty sure about that. I would be really surprised if Nadal did not at least get to Sampras' slam count.

Nadal. His H2H against the top players remains what it was, although it would almost certainly have worsened playing on faster hard courts. That is assuming he did not face any embarrassing 2nd round losses to crappy players.

Now he comes back fresh for the clay court season, the only surface he has won a tournament in nearly 3 years.

Get real. Tokyo and Shanghai are not the latter stages of a slam. Nadal in the semis of a slam is not going to get crushed by Murray. The only way Murray gets an easy victory is if Nadal is injured. Otherwise, it's a minimum of 4 sets, probably 5.

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This is absolutely true. Whenever anyone gets an easy victory over Nadal, its because of injury.

That's how much talent Agassi had. Agassi is probably only second to Federer in talent. Something Pete sorely lacked and made up for by dedicating his entire life to tennis and focusing solely on it during his career. Had Agassi chose to focus he would have wiped Pete off the court the majority of times.

The biggest beneficiaries are equally shared by Murraa followed by djokovic, if nadal would have been in ao as expected, djoker could have faced him going by this years draw so that he would be half tired after playing semis with nadal or murray and will be drained in the final. The only one who could not utilise this opportunity to his advantage is poor feddy who treated murraa like he is great champion and couldn't see for the mug he is

Nothing has really changed much for Murray - he went through Nole and Roger to win the OG and would have had to do the same at the USO had Roger made semis. Had he won the AO, he would also have gone through Roger and Nole.

I'm struggling to see why Rafa's absence has had much bearing on Murray's OG and USO wins.

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because he lost to nadal more than fed and nadal is more in his prime than fed. add to that fed's game is more likely to break down than nadal's because he is more aggressive. nadal vs murray is like 2 human backboards with a green apple in the middle.

LOL I hope you're kidding, outside of clay, his last victory over Djoker was in WTFs 2010

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Not to mention the fact that Djokovic lost at Wimbledon to Federer, Olympics to Murray and Del Potro and the USO to Murray as well...unless Nadal was going to win the WTF there's no way him being apart of the tour could have done much to change Djokovic's fate for the worse...

No it isn't. He's 26 and wasting precious time because it only gets harder winning slams as he age. Nadal can't afford to wait any longer.

Please see the chart below.

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It's better to be away for 6 months when you need to heal your body than to continue playing, not winning anything, and busting your knees for good. Therefore, Nadal is the biggest beneficiary. It's not so hard to understand.

Nothing has really changed much for Murray - he went through Nole and Roger to win the OG and would have had to do the same at the USO had Roger made semis. Had he won the AO, he would also have gone through Roger and Nole.

I'm struggling to see why Rafa's absence has had much bearing on Murray's OG and USO wins.

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I am not going to get overly invested in this topic, but a healthy Nadal is definitely a better player than Federer these days, in fact a healthy Nadal has been better than Federer since 2008, with no exceptions really (the only times Federer has ever been better since the start of 2008 is the second half of 2009 and the second half of 2012, both when Nadal went down with injury for an extended period of time). Most players would rather have to go through Federer to win an event in recent years than Nadal, unless the event is the WTF. Nadal is also the player Murray has the worst record against of all the top players, Djokovic included.

I am not going to get overly invested in this topic, but a healthy Nadal is definitely a better player than Federer these days, in fact a healthy Nadal has been better than Federer since 2008, with no exceptions really (the only times Federer has ever been better since the start of 2008 is the second half of 2009 and the second half of 2012, both when Nadal went down with injury for an extended period of time). Most players would rather have to go through Federer to win an event in recent years than Nadal, unless the event is the WTF. Nadal is also the player Murray has the worst record against of all the top players, Djokovic included.

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Oh well isn't this precious. The old "Nadal can't lose unless he's injured b.s." where have I heard this before?

I am not going to get overly invested in this topic, but a healthy Nadal is definitely a better player than Federer these days, in fact a healthy Nadal has been better than Federer since 2008, with no exceptions really (the only times Federer has ever been better since the start of 2008 is the second half of 2009 and the second half of 2012, both when Nadal went down with injury for an extended period of time). Most players would rather have to go through Federer to win an event in recent years than Nadal, unless the event is the WTF. Nadal is also the player Murray has the worst record against of all the top players, Djokovic included.

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Federer regained the number one ranking after Wimbledon. That is, he achieved the number 1 ranking due to his results from Wimbledon 2011 to Wimbledon 2012.

Nadal played all of his tournaments (atleast the major ones including masters and WTF that I remember) during that time period. Federer achieved the number one ranking BEFORE Nadal started his extended injury break. The fact is that Federer had been having a mini resurgent year where he had won many titles and had placed himself within reach of the number one ranking at Wimbledon. After the draw was released, if I remember correctly all Federer had to do was win Wimbledon and he going to be number one regardless of any other scenario (and that included Nadal reaching the finals). Injury had nothing to do it.

Now if you want to say that Federer only got the number 1 ranking due to his Wimbledon win which would not have occurred if not for Nadal's early loss, that his early loss was due to him being injured, let's recall a few things -

1) Nadal has always struggled in early rounds at Wimbledon. I'm not going to relist all the matches, you know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Until unless you want to suggest he was also injured in 2007 and 2011 during the first week.

2) Rosol was on fire, especially that 5th set. He got lucky and was just zoning. Happens even against the best of players (such as Rafa in this case).

3) As for Nadal being injured, I'm sure he was. However the thing is, I highly doubt his injury or more accurately, the pain that he experiences just magically cropped up within the 2 weeks from French Open to 2nd round at Wimbledon (with 2 matches at Halle in between). If he was in pain, he would almost certainly have also had it during the clay season and the French Open. And guess what? It didn't prevent him from ripping through the draw there and defeating Djokovic. Moreover if it was so bad that he would have thought that he has no chances of winning Wimbledon, he wouldn't have entered the tournament in the first place. The precise reason why he didn't enter AO according to him, he didn't feel he could win it. Yet Nadal judged himself fit enough to play Wimbledon. Unfortunately a combination of bad grass from + zoning Rosol sent him home early.

I'm not saying Nadal wasn't injured/in pain. I'm saying that attributing his loss ONLY to that is an exaggeration since he most likely won the RG with the same condition.

4) Murray actually played damn well in the tournament and could have possibly taken Rafa out.

5) Lastly, the roof came on in the final. Let's say Rafa makes it to the final in this dream scenario. The only time he has beaten Fed was in 2008 when he was at his best grass court form and had Fed mentally rattled and it STILL took 5 sets. Now add the infamous roof onto that, which as so many Fed detractors like to point out is the only reason he won against Murray/Djokovic. Well there you go then, the roof most certainly would have come on in the final and I don't think I need to remind you of their record indoors.

The point here is that winning Wimbledon for Nadal would have been a tall proposition regardless of whatever injury issues you want to attribute his loss to. He is NOT a lock at Wimbledon at all unlike RG.

Which brings me back to my overall point. No, Nadal's injury break had nothing to do with Federer getting back on top. He did that all by himself. Do not denigrate what he was able to achieve just because you hate the Federer fans around here. As hard as that may be for many Fed detractors to believe that a 31 year old Federer can somehow outperform a 25 year old Nadal over a 52 week period, it did indeed happen.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that was "peak Nadal" either btw. His form was pretty terrible in many tournaments during that time period (WTF, Halle, Wimbledon, 2011 fall tournaments etc).

P.S. Apologies for the long post and I'm not trying to antagonize you either, just sharing my opinion on some of the often used arguments.

Valid points but personally I considered Djokovic (along with an active Nadal) the one(s) to beat even when Federer retook #1, similarily how I always considered Serena the one to beat in the last year even though Azarenka was ranked #1. JMO. The bookies obviously did too, as Djokovic was the bookies favorite for the 2012 U.S Open, 2013 Australian Open, 2013 Wimbledon, and Nadal the #2 favorite for the 2012 U.S Open, 2013 Australian Open, and favorite for the 2013 French, even while Federer had retaken #1 (Murray passed Nadal for the bookies #2 favorite for the non French 2013 slams after his U.S Open win, dropping Federer down to #4 for most of the 2013 slams, despite still being ranked #1 at that point). Federer would have had to win a 2nd slam to convince me otherwise (just as Azarenka would have had to beat Serena in the U.S Open final to win her 2nd slam of the year to convince me otherwise amongst the women). Obviously Federer had the ranking for awhile, and others are free to disagree with me on that. Federer had the results in late 2011-mid 2012 to justify his #1 ranking and deserved it, just as by years end Djokovic clearly had the best 2012 and deserved ending it at #1, but I still mantain other than the WTF most top players would rather have to go through ******* than Nadal to win any major event.

That's how much talent Agassi had. Agassi is probably only second to Federer in talent. Something Pete sorely lacked and made up for by dedicating his entire life to tennis and focusing solely on it during his career. Had Agassi chose to focus he would have wiped Pete off the court the majority of times.

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Agassi wasn't good enough to whipe Pete off the court at other then maybe at his peak on rebound ace. But even in 2000, that match could have gone either way and Pete was further past his prime then Agassi was mind you.

Even then I would give Pete's form at say the 1994 Australian and 1997 to give even a peak Agassi a run for his money on slow hard courts

Pete was vastly superior on faster conditions like fast hards, grass and all indoor surfaces.

Agassi is extremely talented, but he isn't as talented as Fed and Pete, Laver, Pancho, Rosewall, Connors, Nadal are etc.

Hes had a ton of talent but not GOAT-like talent. Hes got talent on par with say Djokovic. Maybe slightly more talent then Nole since Andre could also play very well on fast surfaces.. While Djokovic lacks there quite a bit

Agassi wasn't good enough to whipe Pete off the court at other then maybe at his peak on rebound ace. But even in 2000, that match could have gone either way and Pete was further past his prime then Agassi was mind you.

Even then I would give Pete's form at say the 1994 Australian and 1997 to give even a peak Agassi a run for his money on slow hard courts

Pete was vastly superior on faster conditions like fast hards, grass and all indoor surfaces.

Agassi is extremely talented, but he isn't as talented as Fed and Pete, Laver, Pancho, Rosewall, Connors, Nadal are etc.

Hes had a ton of talent but not GOAT-like talent. Hes got talent on par with say Djokovic. Maybe slightly more talent then Nole.

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DropShotArtist is an enormous Sampras and Nadal hater (as well as a fake Djokovic fan, a huge 200 times previously banned troll who last was seen as FakeDjokovicFanForWin, a giganteous ****, and numerous other things).

Valid points but personally I considered Djokovic (along with an active Nadal) the one(s) to beat even when Federer retook #1, similarily how I always considered Serena the one to beat in the last year even though Azarenka was ranked #1. JMO. The bookies obviously did too, as Djokovic was the bookies favorite for the 2012 U.S Open, 2013 Australian Open, 2013 Wimbledon, and Nadal the #2 favorite for the 2012 U.S Open, 2013 Australian Open, and favorite for the 2013 French, even while Federer had retaken #1 (Murray passed Nadal for the bookies #2 favorite for the non French 2013 slams after his U.S Open win, dropping Federer down to #4 for most of the 2013 slams, despite still being ranked #1 at that point). Federer would have had to win a 2nd slam to convince me otherwise (just as Azarenka would have had to beat Serena in the U.S Open final to win her 2nd slam of the year to convince me otherwise amongst the women). Obviously Federer had the ranking for awhile, and others are free to disagree with me on that. I still mantain other than the WTF most top players would rather have to go through ******* than Nadal to win any major event.

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before W, nadal and djokovic would have been clearly ahead of everyone, but that changed during grass season.between the end of wimbledon and the semis of the olympics, i felt federer was playing the best tennis on tour with murray, djokovic, and nadal behind in that order. after the olympics, i thought murray gained an edge over federer, while djokovic and nadal fell further behind.

after the Cinci, i felt Djokovic had done enough to get back into the conversation and murray didnt do enough to stay clearly ahead. perhaps a 3 man race, with nadal, with the prospect of his return, at 4th. post USO, Murray and djokovic were the men to beat, with federer a step behind up until the WTF where federer made small push but failed. Nadal was clearly not in the conversation. at years end, i thought the ones to beat were Djokovic, Murray/ Federer (slight edge murray still), and the rest of the field. Nadal could have been the clear No.4 favorite had he gone into the 2013AO. i dont think nadal was ever above the No.3 favorite at any point after the olympics considering the combination of 3 factors. murray's level rising, dismal prospect of post injury play, and his tendency to relatively not do well during the US hardcourt and asian/european indoor swings.